Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Spiritual Guide for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 195

“A prudent man is he who minds his own business… particularly when not authorized to step in-and the prophets were given no mandate by the widows and orphans to plead their cause. The prophet is a person who is not tolerant of wrongs done to others, who resents other people’s injuries.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.92)

Rabbi Heschel demands we take a stand and declare ourselves in the passage above. I hear him nicely asking the question-what type of person are you choosing to be. It is a choice to be prudent, to mind one’s own business, to wait to be asked and/or “authorized to step in”. It is not a ‘wrong’ choice according to societal norms nor according to many traditions which tell us “to stay in your own lane”. Not putting our nose in another person’s business is a well-known and well-worn phrase. “Prudent” comes from the Latin meaning “foreseeing/attending to”. Choosing to see the future and attending to one’s current needs doesn’t seem like a ‘bad’ choice at all, especially if one is not asked to intervene!

Yet, I hear the contrast and the discernment of Rabbi Heschel. I hear the call to choose whether we are going to be “prudent” or take our proper place as descendants of the prophets. “Widows and orphans” are accustomed to people not hearing them, they have accepted their plight and, through experience, know that people are not wont to “plead their cause.” The choices put before us by the above writing is clear, what is not clear is our acknowledgement that we have to make a positive choice rather than allow our default choice to rule us.

We are living in a time, once again, where the “widows and orphans”, the poor and the stranger are crying out to God and to us. They are exhausted from the discrimination based on color, religion, ethnicity, and, most of all, political mendacity. We hear politicians continue to lie and harangue us about ‘those people’-the stranger, the poor, making them criminals along with Jews and Israelis being usurpers in their own land and throughout the world! We are living in a time where the spiritual sickness of the “prudent” person is being lauded and applauded. Where the spiritual malady of mendacity is being called truth, where annihilation is being praised and authoritarianism is seen as a good solution. Herein lies our dilemma, the souls of our youth and their parents are diseased because they have been left to atrophy, we have not raised the souls of people while raising their minds, bodies, emotions. We have left the most important element in being human, our souls, to the wind; no wonder our youth and the ‘progressives’ believe Jews are bad, no wonder they believe terrorists are good, raping of women and mutilation of babies is appropriate when they are Jews. No wonder the far right and left have found agreement in their anti-semitism and no wonder Jews are unable to respond except with emotional and physical responses. We have a spiritual malady in our society that is running rampant-one of it’s names is ‘being prudent’. Another name is ‘optics’, another name is ‘moral equivalence’, still another is ‘political correctness’.

The prophet doesn’t wait for an invitation from those who are being oppressed, those who are being discriminated against because the prophet is compelled by the “fire in the belly” they experience at the sight of injustice and deception. We all can see the injustice and prejudice, the cancer of the soul and the spiritual ailments that people are suffering right now. Yet, too many of us are being complacent with our ‘empathy’ and ‘sympathy’ for the ‘underdog’. Too many of us are so tired of the ‘political correctness’ that we start to go along with the authoritarian who promises us ‘real freedom’, who promises us that ‘men will be in charge again’, etc.

This is why the choice I hear Rabbi Heschel put before us to be so crucial now as it always has been. Prudence will allow us to survive, we have Germany as an example-people didn’t get involved when they came for the Jews and, as Martin Neimoller said: “when they came for me, there was no one to care”. We are descendants of the prophets, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc-all of us have the wisdom and actions of prophets in our history and in our holy texts. We, the people, have to make a choice to use the examples of the prophets to heal our spiritual maladies and the spiritual sickness of our world. We, the people have to “make a decision” to serve our higher self, to serve a higher calling than our own ‘safety’. We can do this, there are physicians of the soul to help us, we can demand a better spiritual upbringing by our Houses of Worship and we can implement the call of the prophets into our daily living.

I have failed when confronted with this choice in earlier years. I was “prudent” and cared only about “mine”. I wasn’t brought up this way and it was only after I allowed my soul to atrophy that I spent the years from 17-35 in spiritual sickness. Upon being arrested and knowing I was going back to prison it hit me that there was some greater purpose for me and I had to sit in prison until I could figure it out. With the help of many physicians of the soul I found my way back to being a descendant of the prophets, to allowing the “fire in my belly” to take charge and speak up for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the poor, the outcast and the criminal, the one in need of spiritual healing and the ones who have been harmed. My way of butting in has not always been appreciated and, truth be told, not always appropriate nor have I always spoken in ways people can hear. Yet, I have not let injustice reign, I have not been “prudent”, I have paid the price for this way of being and I have healed much of my spiritual sickness because I haven’t been “prudent”! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 194

“Indeed, the major activity of the prophet was interference, remonstrating about wrongs on other people, meddling in affairs which were seemingly neither their concern nor their responsibility.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg. 92)

Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of who “will plead the case of the helpless” in days gone by. I also hear him remonstrate us as well. The word “interfere” comes from the Latin meaning “to strike between”, in the English it means “to prevent”. “The major activity of the prophet was” to strike between/to prevent “wrongs on other people”. What a concept, what courage, what a calling, what a way of living into the principles of holiness, of Godliness, of seeing every human being as having equal dignity and worth.

While the time of the prophets has gone, according to some, their words and their deeds are very much alive in the souls of everyone! We, people of faith,  are all descendants of the prophets, thereby having the same calling to run “interference” for those who are wronged, regardless of faith, creed, ethnicity, color. We are being called to continue the work of the prophets instead of retarding their work. We are being called by the universe to stand up for what is right and true, to leave behind the false claims of the authoritarians and the deceivers, go past our fears “to prevent” the further erosion of the rights of another, to “strike back” against the wrongs being perpetrated in the name of authority and perverted ‘justice’. We are in the midst of the same affairs as the prophets were and it is now our privilege to respond in their name, in our own way.

When protestors in this country are chanting the same slogans as terrorists in the Middle East, we are in trouble. When people in government repeat the same propaganda as Vladimir Putin, we are in danger. When the Supreme Court parrots and decides cases based on power and ‘christian nationalists values’ our democracy is in danger. When Jews are blamed for the ills of the world, when minorities seeking a better life are blamed for the crime in the United States, we are hearing the breaking of glass as happened on Kristalnacht. The warnings are here, we can see them as clear as day when we study history, when we immerse ourselves in the stories of the prophets. The question Rabbi Heschel is posing, as I hear him today: will we respond to today’s crisis’ as the prophets did ‘back in the day’?

“Remonstrate” means “to plead in protest” which is what the prophets did and what we are in dire need of. When we put together “interference, remonstrating” we find a path for our energy, a way to express what we know to be true and right, what is just and righteous. We have to “meddle in affairs which were (are) seemingly neither their (our) concern nor their (our) responsibility.” It is time for us to wake up and realize the cause of everyone who is wronged is everyone’s cause. The need to stand in the breach between the powerful and the powerless is everyone’s need. The call to respect the dignity and value of every person no matter their status nor wealth is everyone’s call. It is beyond time for us to take seriously the lives of the prophets, the teachings they have left behind, the words of divinity they preached and the actions they took.

Their protest was a protest against tyranny, against mendacity, against deception, against bearing false witness and the practice of “Avodah Zarah”, idolatry. They pleaded in opposition to the authoritarians and the liars and, while they did not carry the day, their words are still with us. Their way of being and acting are a clarion call to us to take action, to stand in between the powerful, the despots, and the people who are being taken advantage of, the people who are being wronged mercilessly.  “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country” is a phrase in typewriting class and it is a phrase the prophets could have spoken. As Rabbi Hillel says, “if not now, when?”

We, the people, have to get over our fears and take the next right action. Getting over our fears doesn’t mean getting rid of them, it means climbing over our fears, acknowledging them and making a decision to serve a purpose greater than our fears. We, the people, have to end our need to be right, our hunger for power at any and all costs. We, the people, have to rise above our desire to be deceived and our wish to deceive, so we can see what really is happening. We, the people, have to remove the blinders, stop putting lipstick on a pig and stand up for and stand with those who are wronged. We have to “meddle” in the affairs people tell us to stay out of, we have to be responsible to right the injustices people in power are promoting and we have to say NO to those charlatans in our own time.

I have heard this call of Rabbi Heschel for years. I have done my best to run “interference” for people who have been wronged by the system, by life’s happenings. I have stood up in protest and meddled in “affairs that were neither my concern nor responsibility” according to some. I love the ideas above because it reminds me we are all “our brother’s keeper”. We all call God “Our Father” so we are cousins, brothers, sisters, etc-we are all “kin under the skin”. Which means I/we have to stand up for and stand with our brothers and sisters when they are attacked, I/we have to stand up for and with one another when anti-semitism, hatred, authoritarianism first rears their ugly heads. I/We have to rebuke our kinfolk when they fall under the spell of the deceivers. It hasn’t made me popular and I can live with myself and the universe. Now is the time for action and you are the actors needed. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teachings- A Daily Spiritual Journey

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 193

“Those who neither exploit nor are exploited are ready to fight when their own interests are harmed; they will not be involved when not personally affected. Who shall plead for the helpless? Who shall prevent the epidemic of injustice that no court of justice is capable of stopping?”(Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

The last two sentences above are the questions that have haunted humanity for time immemorial. 36 times in the first 5 Books of the Bible we are told to care for the stranger, help the poor, give voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless. Most of the stories in the Bible re-iterate this theme, either showing how to fulfill this mitzvah or how people don’t fulfill it. From Cain’s question: “am I my brother’s keeper” to God’s response: “the bloods of your brother cry out to me”, we have hear the call to “plead for the helpless”. As Rabbi Heschel says in his interview with Carl Stern; “God is waiting”, waiting for us to answer the call, I believe.

People of all faiths want the Messiah, either to return or come for the first time, and yet, we do everything we can to keep the Messianic Era away. God demands justice, Abraham demands justice from God, the prophets call us to return to being a just society, God calls us back constantly and consistently and we continue to further “the epidemic of injustice” rather than “prevent” it. So, we wonder why God has abandoned us when it is us who has abandoned God! We are waiting to be saved rather than saving one another with justice, mercy, righteousness. Rather than pursue righteousness as we are told to do, we have perverted justice by bribing the judges with loyalty to a political bias which blinds their eyes to truth. “No court of justice is capable of stopping” its own prejudice and, once it accepts the bribes of gifts, money, ‘friendship’, power, etc, is unable to stop the “epidemic of injustice” it brings upon itself and the people it is supposedly serving.

There are a myriad of stories about Elijah the prophet, who will herald the coming of the Messiah, and all of them have him living as a poor person, on the street, a beggar, a leper, etc. Since we have all these stories why hasn’t the Messiah shown up, you might wonder. Well maybe it is because Elijah is never treated with any respect, any care, there is no one to plead for his helplessness, there is no one to stop the injustice of raiding the homeless encampment so the ugliness of our actions that create homelessness, the injustice of locking people up for no serious reason, etc doesn’t permeate our senses and we change our ways.

Of course the answer to Rabbi Heschel’s questions above are the same as the answer to God’s questions in the Bible. Who among us will be like Judah, who among us will be like King David? Both of these leaders were able to admit their errors and do T’Shuvah. They are the examples of excess and doing what they want to just because they can and then having their errant ways showed to them and they repent-“She is more righteous than I” is Judah’s response to Tamar showing him his error. “I have sinned” is King David’s response to Nathan’s accusations. They both had the power to deny, deny , deny-yet they had the spiritual maturity and depth to admit their errors and not do the same thing again.

The only people who can “plead for the helpless” is us! The only people who can “prevent the epidemic of injustice” is us. We, the people, have to answer this call, we, the people, have to take the next right action and end the cries of the helpless, we have to cure the epidemic of injustice that has overtaken the world. And, as with everything else, it begins with our inner life.

We have to end our incessant need and obsession with ‘optics’! The Rabbis were overly concerned with “Maris Ayin”, how things look. People in power and those not in power are concerned with how things look, individuals are worried about how they look in the eyes of the people in the country clubs, beauty parlors, etc. We are obsessed with wearing the “right” face for the moment rather than being real and engaging in the truth of what is. Rather than hear the actual cries of the helpless, many people plead the case they want and call it pleading for the helpless. Rather than “prevent the epidemic of injustice” that the courts are both incapable of stopping and they are promoting, people obsessed with “optics” will defend their choices and their injustices as good and holy! “God told me that you are an abomination because _____ and it says so in the Bible” is a popular refrain of people who obsessed with optics, with power, with promoting injustices and creating a greater “helpless” population.

As one who felt helpless and unheard much of my life, these questions go right to the heart of my existence. My father was my champion, his death left me without anyone to plead to me and for me. The injustices I saw and the ones I conjured up turned me sour and I became a weaver of pictures and lies to get what I wanted, to take advantage of another and, though I told myself they had more than me, they were helpless in their own ways and I took advantage of their vulnerabilities. My bombastic style is probably a result of not being heard, of feeling helpless and a result of knowing how to speak to people in ways they can hear, knowing that I am responding to the fire in my belly and knowing I am trying to reach another person-the helpless one and the one promoting injustice. I am grateful for the ability to plead for the helpless before God, before the courts, before the rich and powerful. I am saddened for the ones I lost and the ones I did not see. I am remorseful for any injustices I promoted and/or did not try to stop and I am grateful for the lives I have helped to save and the souls I have helped to return. Let’s all “plead for the helpless” and stop the “epidemic of injustice” a little more today. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 192

“Those who neither exploit nor are exploited are ready to fight when their own interests are harmed; they will not be involved when not personally affected. Who shall plead for the helpless? Who shall prevent the epidemic of injustice that no court of justice is capable of stopping?”(Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

Immersing ourselves in the questions and statements above, hopefully, wakes us up to who we are and who we can/will become. Between yesterday’s quote and today’s, Rabbi Heschel is giving us four ways of being in the world: exploiter, exploited, one who only gets involved when personally affected, and, the unmentioned one, one who stands for what is right and just independent of courts, public opinion, etc., ie, the prophetic voice that will not be silenced.

I am seeing this as four parts of every person, just as we describe 4 children in the Haggadah, and we liken them to four aspects of ourselves, so too do we all have within us an exploiter, an exploited, an self-interest only, and a prophetic action part. Rabbi Heschel is asking us to see who we are in this moment, how to use our prophetic voice to help another, how to use our Moses to control our inner Pharaoh, how to stand for ourselves and not only for ourselves. As Rabbi Hillel said some 2000+ years ago: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”

The events of the Civil Rights movement called upon us all to declare what ‘camp’ we were in-selfish, racist, victim, caring human being. We did this with our actions because we knew just words were not enough, words have been used to confuse, obfuscate, deceive for so long, they had to be put into action-much like prayer is not about the words we say, it is about the actions we are moved to take because of our prayers. Just as the events of the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s were a continuation of the confrontation between Pharaoh and Moses back in Egypt, so too are today’s events a continuation of this confrontation. In every age, democracy and freedom are in peril, and exploitation and selfishness are in play as is the call to rise above our narcissistic tendencies and live into being descendants of the prophets.

We are engaged in this confrontation across the globe. There are no perfect heroes, there are some people who are very engaged in being as despicable and as enslaving as Pharaoh, however. Putin, Ayatollah, Orban, Sinwar, all are reaching out to take the crown of “hardest heart” away from Pharaoh and put in on their heads. Trump, the Republican Party, the christian nationalists, Netanyahu and his band of right-wing thugs all are vying to take the crown of control and personally enriching on the backs of everyone else from King George. All of these people are engaging in the ways of the exploiter, the controller, the authoritarian, the despot, and the ones standing up against them are being called all sorts of names and are having every weapon at the disposal of these exploiters used against them. They are cunning: they have engaged a whole lot of young people to do their bidding by chanting slogans to annihilate the Jews, wipe Israel off the face of the earth, deny the right to vote to the people who will vote against them, deny the control of their bodies to women so they can be ‘barefoot and pregnant’, deny the right of immigration to people who are in the same straits and have the same hopes and dreams that their ancestors had when they emigrated to the US!

Today is Yom HaShoah, the day of remembrance of the 6 million lives lost in the Holocaust, it falls in the middle of the dates of Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Many people are unaware of how many mini-uprisings there were, how many people had their own standing up for those who were being exploited, how many righteous gentiles there were. Today is a day of remembering what can happen, how cruel the exploiter can be to ‘their own people’ as well as to those they have chosen to exploit. Every KKK’er has infected their children and their neighbors with hatred and lies which continues to be passed on. Every Freedom Rider has infused their children and their neighbors with hope and commitment which continues to be passed on. Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King infused and continue to infuse many of us with the knowing of what can be when people work together for the common good, when we gather together in truth, with a desire to make the world better, to cure the cancer of the soul of prejudice, to clear up our eye disease of bigotry.

This is the inner work that I am many of us in recovery engage in every day. I have to look at my self and do my own inventory, my own daily T’Shvuah because I am aware of how my own inner exploiter creeps in, how my need to be relevant makes me ripe for being exploited, how I am sometimes afraid to speak out for fear of reprisals. Most of all, I need to be sure that my loud, at times obnoxious, prophetic voice guides me in all my affairs. I have to ensure that I am speaking for the exploited and “the helpless”. I have to stop believing that Justice for All is a value that our courts really believe in much less all of the people in this country or across the globe. I have to stand up for the spiritual truths, the values that ensure we will continue to “be human” as Rabbi Heschel demands. I have to join with the myriad of people all over the globe who want the Palestinians to live in peace and prosperity, who respect and understand that Israel cannot live with Hamas being next door to them, who see a person of a different color and embrace them as an image of the divine. I have to do my part and not let the other ‘parts’ of me interfere with doing the next right thing. I need to live into being a descendant of the prophets. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teachings so We Can Live a Little Better Each Day

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 191

“As a rule, those who know how to exploit are endowed with the skill to justify their acts, while those who are easily exploited possess no skill in pleading their own cause.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

This sentence describes a situation that has happened throughout the history of humankind. It is a deeply disturbing truth and realization for most people so we tend to ignore it and, eventually, be brought down by it.

“Exploit comes from the Latin meaning “unfold”, “skill” comes from the Old Norse meaning “discernment” and “justify” comes from the Latin meaning “do justice to”.  Rabbi Heschel’s use of these words in the sentence above gives us a glimpse into the disruption of the Biblical commands to “do justly”, “love mercy”, “care for the stranger, the poor,…” by “those who know how to exploit”. I believe these Biblical teachings, which are reiterated throughout the Bible in story after story, are the acknowledgement of the ability of some who are capable of “unfolding” the story and able to see the loopholes of a situation, and then telling us not to! Yet, here again, another teaching from the Bible gets swept under the rug by many who claim to be ‘god-fearing people’, while their actions prove them to be God-denying people!

Watching the myriad of ways some people defend the ‘skill’ of Donald Trump to skate the ‘long arm of the law’ for so long, to defend his illegal actions since running for the Presidency in 2016, saluting and cheering for him to be “dictator for a day”, etc is watching people trying to “do justice to” what is illegal, immoral, and deeply unreligious and not spiritual. Yet, there are millions of people who are doing this right now, there are many top Republicans who know Trump is dangerous and his winning will probably end democracy as we know it, yet Bill Barr, Mitch McConnell, et al say they will vote for him. They will use their “skill” to “justify” what they know is wrong, just as they have done throughout their political careers, even though they swore oaths to defend and protect the Constitution against all adversaries, foreign and domestic. These people are engaging in a high-wire act “to justify their acts” and all they seem to care about is themselves not their duty to the oaths they have taken, not their duty to engage in the Biblical commands above, not to follow Jesus’ examples-only their self-interest.

This issue, described some 60+ years ago by Rabbi Heschel is the same one we are facing today. It is a little subtler because of social media, it gets more blurred and the exploiters can hide their exploitation a little better, as it is said, “a lie travels the earth while truth is getting its boots on”. The people who know better, like Barr, McConnell, et al, “justify” their actions with ‘party loyalty’ and other such bullshit when they are being loyal to themselves only-they are only afraid of what Trump will do to them if he wins-so rather than ensuring his defeat, they hedge their bets and use their “discernment”, their ability to manipulate the truth, to “justify” going against the teachings of the Bible they claim to revere! This is how devious and destructive our ability to “exploit” the truth is, our “skill” to manipulate facts and our creative ways to “justify” unholy and illegal behaviors, like keeping the Black person down, denying voting rights to citizens, having one law for citizens and another for strangers, proclaiming liberty only to ‘our people’ and denying to ‘those people’, etc.

This is where we are today, as we were in the 1960’s. The protests on College Campus’ are not the same as those of the late 60s and early 70’s. We were against the war in Vietnam, we were not supporting the communists, we were not cheering on the terrorism of the Communists, unlike the protestors today. We were not calling for the extermination of the United States, we were not calling for the end of a people nor a state-we were calling for each country to determine for themselves what type of government they wanted. Today’s protests are funded in a large part by Qatar, Saudi Arabia through the ‘chairs’ they endowed and they are calling for the end of Israel as a state, for Jews to be pushed into the ‘river and the sea’, they are supporting the horrific torture, murder, kidnapping and cease-fire breaking of Hamas and calling they ‘freedom fighters’ while they use their own people as human shields, deny them good living so they can build tunnels and use the Billions of Dollars they receive to live in luxury in Qatar, Gaza and wherever else in the world they want to. And these ‘protestors’ use their “skill” to “justify” these murderers and convince the innocents on campus to join them and these “easily exploited” don’t even know they have a different cause to plead!

This sentence is so impactful for me precisely because I have been the exploiter and the exploited. I have used my “skills”, my discernment, to “justify” my actions as a thief and a con man. I would say “you can’t cheat an honest person so the people I conned had larceny in their veins”, and other such bullshit. I am still remorseful for those justifications and those actions. I have paid back the people I know I stole from and I have given an extra 3-5% in charity these past 35+ years as restitution to the Banks, insurance companies, etc that I stole from. I also have not tried to “exploit” another human being for my benefit in my recovery. I have “exploited” a weakness in another person in order to help them see truth, the light, a decent path forward, just not for my benefit, my greed. I have been on the receiving end of another’s exploitation of my vulnerabilities, of my way of being and, I am responsible for my own actions, of using their skills to justify ‘taking me down a peg’ or two. I hold no resentments, only sadness for those who have exploited my nature, my kindness, my vulnerabilities and ask for forgiveness to the universe for the myriad of times, prior to Nov 1988 I exploited another. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 190

“Righteousness must dwell not only in the places where justice is judicially administered. There are many ways of evading the law and escaping the arm of justice.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

Thinking about these two sentences almost makes wish for a time when the first one was true! Even “in the places where justice is judicially administered”, righteousness does not necessarily prevail. We have lost our ability to “not accept bribes”, to not allow politics on either extreme of the spectrum not influence the righteousness that true justice calls for. We are living in times where it increasingly difficult to find righteousness in our daily affairs, in our judicial proceedings, in our political life and in our economic dealings.

The colleges who are negotiating with students to end investment in Israel are not acting from righteousness, they are acting from fear; fear of confronting the truth of the ways they have been educating students. They are willing to support a terrorist organization, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, to placate a minority of students and faculty. While we can debate the policies of Israel all day long, we cannot deny the fact that Hamas, the PLO, the PA have rejected every cease-fire, every offer of a two-state solution that has been presented to them. By doing this, the progressives have made them into ‘poor victims’ who rape, torture and murder innocent Israelis in the their beds, women, children, babies, men, young and old or at a music festival celebrating peace! This is whom the colleges are saying are the ‘righteous ones’ by their acquiescence to the ridiculous demands of so-called students and their outside agitators. Where is the justice for the people who were murdered, where is the justice for the women who were raped, where is the justice for those still held captive-against International Law and Hamas has never been brought up on charges, while Israel continues to be denigrated. A little double-standard maybe-oh no-we Jews are always the problem, we are always the scapegoats-for the far right and far left. Where is the justice here? Where is the righteousness in the world courts, in world opinion, on our college campus’??

On a more personal plane, the justice system has always been easy to manipulate if you are a person of wealth and, if you are a victim of a terrible childhood at times. Just as in Ancient Greece and Rome and in every country since antiquity, justice is about what can be proved and what can be evaded. In Ancient Israel, the purpose of justice was to find the truth without fear nor favor, without regard to the status of the people in front of the court. Today, we witness the specialization of lawyers in denying responsibility, in evading the letter and/or the spirit of the law, and their absolute conviction that people who have enough money to afford them are entitled to a different justice than people who can’t! The courts go along with this theory as well and righteousness is no longer the goal of justice, truth is no longer the goal of justice, only winning is the goal! Innocent people are wrongly convicted and guilty people are let free, Antonio Scalia in defending a decision to allow a patently innocent man be executed said: “due process had been followed-guilt or innocence is of no concern to me”. This Supreme Court Justice, some 20 years ago in a talk I attended, confirmed that righteousness and truth have no place in our judicial system anymore. Donald Trump’s constant assault on the rule of law, the Supreme Court’s enabling him to delay, delay, delay all show how far we have fallen since Biblical Days when Truth and Righteousness were the goals of every case before a court.

On an even more personal plane, many of us have relinquished doing what is righteous in favor of ‘getting ahead’. I have heard people brag often, and I have done the same, of how they ‘got over’ on someone. As a con-man, I celebrated every ‘score’ I made and never once considered the damage to righteousness and truth I was making. We are raising generations of people to believe they can be and do anything-rather than raise them with the obligation of “do justly”, the call of the Bible to “pursue righteousness”, knowing we will not achieve it totally and, as Rabbi Tarfon says: “we don’t have to finish the work and we are not free to invalidate it!” Each person is needed to do the inner inventory and see how each of us has evaded being righteous, evaded the law and escaped justice/accountability.

Earlier in this section of this book, Rabbi Heschel spoke of “extenuate personal responsibility”. I am disturbed because this is another subtle example and way we ‘thin out’ our personal responsibility. I have made things okay because I can find a validation in the law and, even in the Torah or Talmud. I have evaded being righteous through making excuses about ‘the greater good’ rather than the truth and what is just and righteous. While these have decreased to a minimal over the years of my recovery and my immersion into the Bible, I cannot deny them otherwise I will repeat them. I have looked at my evading justice and righteousness each year through my daily and yearly inventory, doing the necessary T’Shuvah/Amends and not worrying about what another has done to me. If they are unable to step up to their part, I feel sad for them-not resentful. This is one of the ways I continue to grow in “do justly” and pursuing righteousness. It isn’t always easy and it is always simple. I believe it is time for all of us to stop “extenuating personal responsibility” and take our proper place in our world. It is time for all of us to end our need for approval through manipulation, our incessant drive to ‘get over’ and ‘be #1”, to buy the deceptions of another so we can be accepted. It is time for us to leave the mendacity of the terrorists, the lies of their allies, the hatred of one another, the denigration of any and all people. This is America, This is Biblical life to me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 189

“Most of us are content to delegate the problem to the courts, as if justice were a matter for professionals or specialists. But to do justice is what God demands of every man; it is the supreme commandment, and one that cannot be fulfilled vicariously.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

The last phrase above disturbs me greatly. Justice is “the supreme commandment” does not only mean what is legal, what is for the courts to decide. Justice has to permeate every action we take, between one person and another, between one community and another, between the people and the governments. Yet, all to often, we delegate the administration of justice to the courts, to another person, etc. Society continues to act as if “justice” can be “fulfilled vicariously.”

We have become indifferent to “justice” in our societal norms by relegating it to a legal construct. Throughout history there has been two tiers of justice, at least. One for the common person and one for the powerful and wealthy. One for the white person and one for people of color, one for the Christian and one for the Jew/Muslim/Buddhist, etc. Our indifference comes from our acceptance of these two tiers of justice, be it legal, business, personal.

We are witnesses to the degradation of this “supreme commandment”. Moses and Micah, when describing what “God wants” put justice first. “Do justly” does not only apply to a legal construct, it applies to caring for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor. It applies to our tithes, it applies to the ways we acknowledge the worth, dignity and presence of every human being we encounter. Saying hello to people on the street is doing justly. Yet, we ignore so many people around us. Speaking truth rather than giving into our self-deceptions and the deceptions of another does justice to our Divine Image. Being involved in making our corner of the world a little brighter and better is a path of justice. None of these paths can be delegated to someone else, we are being reminded that “someone else will do this” is a response that retards justice.

None of us are exempt from doing justice and almost all of us fail to live justly in our daily affairs. In the 12th Step of Alcoholics Anonymous, we commit to “practice these principles in all our affairs”. We do not leave it up to someone else to live these principles, we have to be engaged in them, from setting up chairs to reaching out to another human being who is suffering, whether someone has 1 day or 30+ years. The same is true in our everyday living, the ‘pious’ among us are not exempt from “doing justly”, they are more responsible because of their proclaiming their piety. Prayer, study, engagement in religious life doesn’t give someone the right to dictate to another, rather it gives one the responsibility to be personally and totally engaged in justice. Blocking aid from getting into Gaza is not justice, believing it is okay to kill people because they are ‘not us’ is unjust, believing one can impose their narrow and fundamentalist interpretations of the law, the Bible onto the masses is unjust. Terrorist attacks on innocents on religious Holy Days is unjust. Because these acts are done by ‘our people’ it is imperative that we call these injustices out and find ways to stop ‘our people’ from perpetrating them, otherwise we are being indifferent to the suffering of another human being, another group, and this is the greatest injustice of all.

In the Bible, there are times when Moses, Abraham, Job, the prophets call out to God to “do justly”, to show mercy rather than wrath, to be open to the return of the wayward and those who commit grave errors. This too is a form of justice. Never writing someone out of our books, as I learned early on in my recovery-not sure of the source, we can put someone out of our homes and never put them out of our hearts. When we chant “Lock them Up”, when we believe one group, be it Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Asians, Jews, are all bad because they don’t believe in Jesus, when the people in power want ‘a christian nation’ with laws that are anything but Christ-like, we are committed to being unjust, when we stereotype, when we fail to see each case on its own merits and the differences between people, we are being unjust. When we come under the spell of the Charismatic Leader, the authoritarian, we are heading down the road of injustice because we are allowing someone else to do our thinking for us, to decide what is just and what isn’t based on their whims and personal desires.

This last phrase disturbs me for the above reasons and, more so, because I have fallen prey to allowing justice to “be fulfilled vicariously”. I have gone along to get along. I have bought my own kool-aid at times and been unjust in my actions. I have made amends for these actions to everyone I believe has been affected by my acts of injustice, my allowing someone else to fulfill justice instead of me, and I am acutely aware of the negativity I left in my wake. For this, I am remorseful. I also know I have caused much distress because I have not waited for someone else to speak up, to “do justly” and railed, been bombastic, unbending in my ways of being just, of recognizing the dignity of everyone. I have confronted people loudly and aggressively for their indifference to their own unjust actions and ways. I have spoken, sometimes very loudly, truth to power, I have confronted deceptive people in the wrong moments, I have not always been correct in my assessments as well. I, have not, however, allowed myself to wallow in self-pity nor stay in my fallen state of allowing justice to “be fulfilled vicariously” very long, nor stand idly by the injustices towards another(s). I am disturbed by the abdication of doing justly in all our affairs by myself and so many others, I am disturbed at the violent assaults on our humanity when this happens. God Bless and stay safe Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 188

“Most of us are content to delegate the problem to the courts, as if justice were a matter for professionals or specialists. But to do justice is what God demands of every man; it is the supreme commandment, and one that cannot be fulfilled vicariously.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

These words of Rabbi Heschel’s are speaking to the issue of Civil Rights and they are as true and pertinent today as they were some 61 years ago. We have seen a proliferation of court cases where people seeking to be unjust are using the ‘cover’ of the law, the political bent of the Supreme Court Justices to undo the Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws of the 1960’s. We are witnesses to these “professionals and specialists” using the courts to fulfill their own unreligious and unjust desires, their desire for power and control. It is a great tragedy that our courts have taken away rights from the powerless and the voiceless, from women and LGBTQ+, from the stranger and the poor. Yet, this is the situation we find ourselves in today. Delegating “the problem to the courts” has led America to be unjust, according to “what God demands of every man.”

The courts have become a place where the alliances of minorities have been shattered, Blacks and Jews are no longer aligned to “do justice”. Between the courts and the urgings of people in both minorities, Jews and Blacks find themselves as opponents instead of allies. This is a great tragedy! Black Ministers are calling on President Biden and Israel for a Cease-Fire. Why are they and the protestors not calling on Hamas for a Cease-Fire? We are being assured this is not anti-semitism, yet, just as racism can be sniffed out by the victims of it, so too can anti-semitism be sniffed out by Jews.

We are told in Deuteronomy16:18 to engage in Mishpat Tzedek, righteous justice. This teaching by Moses calls our attention to the two aspects of justice: a law and what is morally right. In fact, according to the Oxford dictionary, both words, righteous and justice, mean doing what is morally right and fair. What was happening at the time Rabbi Heschel spoke these words was anything but what was morally right and fair, hence his railing about the injustice practiced by both the courts and people. What is happening right now is anything but what is morally fair and right, hence our need to stop delegating to the “professionals or specialists” the administration of righteous justice.  I learned from one of my teachers, Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man, to take this personally: be morally right in my words and my deeds, seek a spiritual guide to help me discern what is the righteous and just action to take in this moment, knowing the next moment will be different. Rather than delegate the responsibility of doing justice to the courts, to the “professionals or specialists”, it is to each of us that this ‘command’ is addressed. Every human being is responsible for the administering of justice, as Rev King said: “ Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” These words of Rev King were prophetic then and we are witnesses to the fulfillment of this prophecy in our own time.

While one can debate the situation in Gaza, everyone should be horrified by the devastation. At the same time, which seems to elude the protestors on campus’ around our country, the devastation is the direct result of the attack on Oct. 7th when Hamas broke the Cease-Fire and tortured, raped, murdered and took hostages. The devastation is the direct result of Hamas’ unwillingness to return the hostages and deny the different agreements for a Cease-Fire that have been presented by their allies in Egypt, Qatar, etc! In the news coverage on the left, this fact is left out! It is left out in the calls of the protestors who portray Hamas, a terrorizing force in Israel, in Gaza, who use the people of Gaza as their human shields, who claim it doesn’t matter how many are killed ‘for the cause’, as freedom fighters! They want to exterminate the Jews, kill all zionists, displace Israel from its land, etc. This is what they call Justice? This is what they call morally right and fair?

And the world says nothing except to condemn the Jews! I disagree with Netanyahu and his band of thugs on almost every issue, they have perverted what is in the Bible for their own purposes. They have sought to do the same with the Justice System in Israel as Leonard Leo and the Federalist society have done in the US. And, a two-state solution is the only just and fair way of dealing with the issues in the Middle East, which the world has conveniently forgotten about was the original idea of the UN in their Partition Agreement in 1947! It was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who killed that idea, it was the Arab Countries surrounding Israel who went to war in 1948-all of whom had supported Hitler in WWII!

I am, as you may have noticed, enraged by what is happening both in Gaza and in our country. I am saddened by the lack of participation and discussion of what is morally right and fair. I am looking at my own call to “do justice”, my own actions to be just and fair, moral and truthful. It begins within, I continue to put guardrails up to tamp down my unjust impulses, I continue to speak out, loudly and softly, whenever I witness injustice. I am overwrought at what I see happening in our country, how the Supreme Court has become so corrupt that, instead of being an instrument that “proclaims liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”, it has become an instrument to deny freedom and liberty to the masses in favor of the few. I cannot stay silent while people “make thin” their personal responsibility to “do justice”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teaching - A Daily Spiritual Guide for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 187

“Our standards are modest; our sense of injustice tolerable, timid; our moral indignation impermanent; yet human violence is interminable, unbearable, permanent. The conscience builds its confines, is subject to fatigue, longs for comfort. Yet those who are hurt, and He who inhabits eternity, neither sleep nor slumber.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

The people who are impacted by the “human violence” of another, according to Rabbi Heschel, “neither sleep nor slumber”. The impact of prejudice, violence that is physical, mental, spiritual, does not leave its victims, it always weighs on us. This is true for children who are abused as well as adults. This is true for women who are ‘under the thumb’ of their fathers, husbands, etc. This is true for ethnicities that have been scapegoated like Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims. This is true, also, for the people who care about their neighbors, who abhor injustice whether they are powerless to end this “human violence” or they have the power to stop the perpetuation of it.

The spiritual harm is so great and, as science teaches us, has such far-reaching effects, that it is passed down through the generations. Jews have felt the effects of anti-semitism since Antiquity and the perpetrators have engaged in it throughout the ages-be it the Greeks, Romans, the Church, etc. This epigenetic inheritance has extenuated the personal responsibility of the anti-semites, it makes thin their responsibility for their actions and has become a societal norm! For the Jew, it has made us very sensitive to the least hint of anti-semitism and our reactions range from hiding to fighting, from seeing it everywhere and ignoring it until it is too late. When we stand against it, we are called overly sensitive, aggressive, oppressors, etc. by those who want to eliminate us and/or keep us in our place.

Blacks in America have the same reactions, they are sensitive to the slightest hint of racism, they are acutely aware of being accused of crimes they have not committed, being given longer prison sentences than whites, receiving education that doesn’t always meet the education of whites, etc. They have become accustomed to white people crossing the street when they are walking towards them, they are used to being passed over for jobs and positions, they are susceptible to the gang violence that has come to be ‘normal’ in some neighborhoods and fight for their dignity each and every day. The same is true for Hispanics who are labeled by some as criminals, rapists, etc. in our current political climate.

Each of these ethnic groups along with everyone else who experiences the “human violence” of ‘the man’ are very aware of their need to be hyper alert. Blacks have the experience of the deep South and slavery, Jim Crow and the KKK, and now the MAGA movement. Jews have the experience of slavery in Egypt, being wanderers for almost 1900 years and in our wandering being expelled from every country in the world except for the United States where the Protocols of Zion and Father Coughlin perpetrated anti-semitism, where there were quotas on college enrollment, where people march screaming Jews will not replace us. Just as Blacks re-experience the old wounds of slavery and discrimination every time they are denied their proper due and there is a killing like George Floyd, Jews re-experience the trauma of anti-semitism, the concentration camps, ghettos, and exile of the past whenever there are demonization of Israel, of Jews, when there is a celebration of Hamas and people who want our extermination.

The issue spiritually for everyone, of course, is none of us should be able to “sleep nor slumber” when there is human violence being perpetrated anywhere against anyone. One can argue that Israel’s response is too much and to forget the rape, torture, murder that initiated this response is also an act of “human violence”. To hold the Israeli government totally responsible is to encourage Hamas to continue to terrorize, to give aid and comfort to Iran in their quest to kill the Jews, yet, the people who claim to be victims of “human violence” have no issue with the “human violence” they perpetrate. The demonstrations that are taking place and some of the media coverage conveniently forget how many Cease-Fire proposals Hamas has rejected, how long they have kept hostages which is against International Law, how their crimes against humanity are being whitewashed. Just as when Black people are arrested, abused, even killed for “driving while Black” and the perpetrators ignore it, so too with the Jews when we are threatened with extermination, the perpetrators are celebrated!

For each of us, the issue is deeply personal or should be. We have to stop sleeping well while “human violence” in any form is being perpetrated anywhere. I think of my own crimes and misdemeanors in this realm and, while I have done my T’Shuvah, made my amends, I also know the negativity never leaves the world. I hope and pray my amends and T’Shuvah keep the negativity where it belongs, in the past. I have been the recipient of amends by another(s) and whatever the unresolved feelings were prior, upon being asked for forgiveness, they were lifted from my soul and my inner life. This is the power of T’Shuvah, the call of the amends process-to allow for the past to be relegated to its proper place rather than continually be part of the psyche of the one that is/has been harmed. I have done many amends and I do so again-for those who have been harmed by my actions, knowingly and unknowingly, of spiritual/emotional violence, I am truly sorry. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Spiritual Guide for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 186

“Our standards are modest; our sense of injustice tolerable, timid; our moral indignation impermanent; yet human violence is interminable, unbearable, permanent. The conscience builds its confines, is subject to fatigue, longs for comfort. Yet those who are hurt, and He who inhabits eternity, neither sleep nor slumber.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

Rabbi Heschel’s highlighted words above describe the state of affairs for most people. Many of us “build its confines”, meaning we continually put borders and limits on where our conscience takes us. This is how we are able to stay silent in the face of evil, hide our heads when wrongs are being done in ‘our name’ by governments, religions, family members, etc. By building these boundaries, we allow our consciences to be soothed by self-deceptions, we go along with the wrong doing and deceptions of another(s), we abdicate our responsibility to serve and engage in a “higher calling”. Building these boundaries, these “confines” we allow ourselves to be spiritually, morally, and ethically lazy. Be it the treatment of the sick, lame, elderly in Ancient Rome and Greece, the treatment of people in the Dark and Middle Ages, the hatred of Jews for the millennia, the enslavement of Blacks in America, etc, these are the results of building these confines, limiting our moral outrage, caring just for our own well-being.

Rabbi Heschel gives us a ‘reason’ for building these “confines”; “fatigue, longs for comfort”. Fatigue comes from the Latin meaning “tire out”. One of the English definitions is “a lessening in one's response to or enthusiasm for something, typically as a result of overexposure to it.” Our consciences have been exposed to the evils of slavery, oppression, anti-semitism, fear of ‘the other’, for so long that we seem to be unable to respond to them with anything but indifference. Looking at the phenomena of Trump’s popularity, hating the stranger proclaiming the goodness of terrorists and rapists in Gaza, the ho-hum towards Putin’s rape of Ukraine, harkens back to earlier eras, we still haven’t learned how to invigorate our consciences and stay true to our inner values.

Comfort comes from the Latin meaning “strengthen”, in English we use “the easing or alleviation of a person's feelings of grief or distress.” Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is a warning and a call to us to not “strengthen” our inability to respond to the indifference our consciences have adopted, to not “alleviate” our bad conscience over the distress of another person/group nor “ease” our moral outrage at lies, deceptions, slavery, unkindness, etc. Yet, we continue to do this, we seem, historically and in real time, to be unable to express the moral outrage of the Prophets. Our conscience is in turmoil and we put different salves, ointments, etc to alleviate the turmoil because we are afraid to face the truth and act accordingly. We are unable to deal with the nuances and subtleties of living a life of “moral grandeur and spiritual audacity” as Rabbi Heschel said in a telegram to President Kennedy in 1963.

While some say that prophecy doesn’t happen anymore, I disagree. We have seen prophets in our time, like Rabbi Heschel, Rev King, George Orwell, and so many others. We have the words and deeds of the prophets of antiquity we can study and learn from. We have, within us, the fire of the prophets and we are called “descendants of the prophets”. Jesus’ words were his interpretation of the prophets words, using the same themes in his sermons. Western Morality comes from the Bible and the prophets proclaiming their value to those in power. Yet, we seem to easily forget, to “limit” our consciences, to allow them to “tire out” and seek to “strengthen” our indifference rather than claim our inheritance of “fire in the belly” from the prophets of old.

There seem to be so many causes in the world today and there is only one cause we need to be concerned with: our ways of dealing with our conscience. We, the people, have to take up the mantle of the prophets, we have to take up the words of the Bible, we have to take up the call of Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, etc and take the next right action rather than the most expedient one. We have to imbue the courage of the prophets to do the bidding of our souls, our spirits rather than soothe our conscience seeking ‘comfort”. We are being called today, as we are every day, to stand for what is right and good, to take actions to ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and value, every person is seen as a divine need. We are commanded to free/ransom the captive, this applies to our selves, our consciences as well as to another human being. As we end our celebration of leaving the physical slavery of Egypt, we embark on the journey of leaving the spiritual slavery of a lazy conscience. This is what counting the Omer means this year.

My recovery is based in, and I continue to find, the ways I am in the spiritual slavery of a lazy conscience. In these years of recovery, I have kept the words and deeds of the prophets, Rabbi Heschel, the early Hasidim, my father and grandfathers as my north star. When I don’t, I am in danger of losing my moral compass. I am loud and the “fire in my belly” burns hot and explosive, something that is not accepted in polite society and some people recoil from. This saddens me and, in all these years, I try to temper it when appropriate and I don’t always succeed. I am afraid of indifference because, knowing my own history, I am acutely aware of how easy it is to fall into a lazy conscience and bad actions, comforting myself with mendacity and going along with negativity and deception. I cannot do this- I cannot go backwards. I would rather suffer the arrows of those who use my vulnerabilities against me than not heed the fire within. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom- A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 185

“Our standards are modest; our sense of injustice tolerable, timid; our moral indignation impermanent; yet human violence is interminable, unbearable, permanent. The conscience builds its confines, is subject to fatigue, longs for comfort. Yet those who are hurt, and He who inhabits eternity, neither sleep nor slumber.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

The issue Rabbi Heschel raises about “human violence” strikes at the heart of our existence, for me. How do we define “human violence” is important because many people mis-define it, in my opinion. “Human violence” happens whenever and wherever we categorize another human being as “the other”. Whenever we ignore the plight of those who are suffering, we are committing “human violence”. Whenever we fail to recognize the divine image of another human being, we are committing “human violence”. When we need to make someone else bad so we can be good, ie comparison, we commit “human violence”. When we need to rule over ‘those people’ we commit “human violence”. In other words, all of us are guilty of committing it.

The words Rabbi Heschel uses to describe our consistent engagement in “human violence” are soul-shattering, hopefully. “Interminable” means “without end”, “unbearable” means “not able to be endured or tolerated”, and “permanent” means “lasting indefinitely”. Since the days of Cain and Abel we have been confronted with “human violence” and we continue to engage in it even though it harms our souls, it harms the souls and bodies of another(s), and ew have seen how it ravages our humanity. It seems to be enjoyed by some people so much they are surprised when they are held to account for their violence towards another(s), the MAGA crowd is bewildered by the fact they are being held accountable for Jan. 6th when they believe their “human violence” was a just and good cause-the end of democracy! We, the people, have to come to terms with our inner life, with our need to compare and compete to such an extreme that “human violence” is the norm and is celebrated.

Putin, Sinwar, G’vir, Netanyahu, Orban, MBS, the Ayatollah, are but the faces of physical “human violence” we read about and hear about today. What they all have in common is their ‘people’ have gone along with the physical violence they have perpetrated. In the case of Netanyahu and G’vir, as well as with Sinwar, the Israelis and Palestinians in the ‘streets’ do not all agree with their tactics, Israelis are demonstrating and arguing with their government to end senseless violence, the people of Gaza who disagree with Hamas and Sinwar are still too afraid, know the depth of the “human violence” Hamas and Sinwar engage in, using human shields, hospitals, Mosques to hide in and store weapons in. Hamas decided to end the Cease-Fire on Oct. 7th and are not willing to admit their crimes while some in the world condemn Israel for its retaliation, which can be argued is devastating. When Putin condemns Israel for defending itself when he invaded a sovereign country, Ukraine, we see the effects of the permanence of “human violence”, we witness the cover-up, clean-up of the “interminable” and “permanent” nature of it.

The student demonstrators on College Campus’ decry what is happening in Gaza right now, and it is devastating. They also call for “from the river to the sea” promoting the extermination of Jews, the end of the State of Israel and are unaware of how they claim “human violence” is “unbearable” and at the same time promote it - as long as it is against “the Jews”. Why is “human violence” bearable when it is against the Jews, as we have seen throughout history. Just as in the early days and throughout the Second World War, people don’t want to go to war to save the Jews, so too today-the attack on the Israeli people who reached out an olive branch, who helped the people of Gaza navigate check points and helped them get to hospitals, gave them work in their homes and their fields, were the ones who were killed, tortured, raped, taken captive! The student demonstrators seem fine with this situation-only Israel should stop the fighting- not Hamas. This is how subtle and “interminable” “human violence” was, is and always will be until we put an end to it.

The only way to end the physical “human violence” is to heal the soul sickness that causes it. We live in times where spiritual illness is rampant, our solutions for it have been alcohol, drugs, work, blame, shame, violence-just as the Bible stories about Cain & Able, Adam & Eve in the garden, Pharaoh in Egypt, and so many more stories of “human violence” found in the pages of the Bible-not to validate this way of being, rather to decry it, to inform us as to the causes and the truth that “sin couches at our door and we can master it”. Isn’t it time to “turn our swords into plowshares”? Isn’t it time for “men learn war no more”? We have the power to do this, we have the technology, we need, as Maimonidies teaches, a physician of the soul to help us heal our spiritual maladies and “grow along spiritual lines”. We need a program of spiritual recovery and we need to engage in it today!

I have committed “human violence” in my recovery and I am remorseful for these acts. While my way of being is bombastic and loud, I am sensitive to the lies people tell themselves, I also have engaged and indulged in missing the humanity of people, missing the need and cry of people at times and for this I make my amends and do better each day. I also have helped many people end their inner violence towards themselves, doing so lessens the “human violence” we commit towards another(s). I continue each day to let go of the hurts and the arrows I have experienced, I continue each day to appreciate the joy of connection, the lessening of inner violence. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 184

“Our standards are modest; our sense of injustice tolerable, timid; our moral indignation impermanent; yet human violence is interminable, unbearable, permanent. The conscience builds its confines, is subject to fatigue, longs for comfort. Yet those who are hurt, and He who inhabits eternity, neither sleep nor slumber.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

This is the third way Rabbi Heschel speaks about how we were/are “dealing with our bad conscience”. Whether it is about Black people, Brown people, Asian people, Jews, Muslims, etc; we seem to be able to tolerate the injustice that is perpetrated upon someone else with the idea that progress is being made, why are they so impatient, etc. The same actions which if done to us would make us angry and cause revolt, we soothe our conscience by saying “why are they so angry”. Rabbi Heschel is calling us out because “our standards are modest”, “our sense of injustice tolerable, timid; our moral indignation impermanent;”

Living into his words above in the first sentence must cause us pain, guilt and personal recrimination, I believe. I know they do for me. How can I pray, be a person of faith, call myself human and have modest standards? The Bible and every other spiritual text demands we raise ourselves up to the standards of spiritual health, spiritual decency. They demand we “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”(Lev. 25:10), that we stand up for one another, we ransom the captive, etc. Yet, in the 61 years since the Conference on Race and Religion where these words were spoken, we seem to have gone backwards, we have retreated to more modest “standards”, the voting rights bill has been gutted, the treatment of Black and Brown people has gotten worse, the alliances of minorities in this country has fallen apart, and we get angry with one another, rather than being angry at injustice!

When “driving while Black” can still get an innocent person murdered by police, when walking down a street in a neighborhood where one doesn’t ‘seem to belong’ can get one beaten, when police are not prosecuted for their crimes, when a former President is helped by the Supreme Court and lower Courts to evade responsibility and justice, we are witnessing “our sense of injustice” being tolerable and, even, turned upside down. What makes these Justices, these keepers of our Constitution so timid? I believe it is their desire to serve their politics rather than justice, their desire to proclaim their fidelity to ‘christian justice’ rather than to the justice that Christ speaks of nor the justice that the Bible speaks about. Rather than being people who do not take bribes nor recognize one person over another nor have one law for the rich and one for the poor as the Bible instructs us; these Justices have made it their raison d’être to do the opposite. Thomas and Alito take bribes, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch follow a christianity that would be unrecognizable to Christ.

We hear much from the charlatans about their “moral indignation” that is focused on freedom for all, they are against voting rights, welcoming the stranger, feeding the poor, upholding the Constitution when it is inconvenient for them, etc. Their “moral indignation” is focused on anyone and anything that may impugn on their power grab, their wealth, their sense of injustice towards white people.

We find the “moral indignation” of some minorities to be “impermanent” as well. The protests against Israel, the calling for an immediate cease-fire make no mention of the atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, no mention of the illegal taking and keeping of hostages by Hamas and the fact that they have not let the Red Cross visit any of the hostages. They forget to mention there was a cease-fire in effect on Oct. 6th, 2023 and it was broken by Hamas! They seem incapable of having any “moral indignation” towards Hamas and their allies who murdered, raped and killed so many Israelis-‘oh yeah, that’s Jewish Blood and they deserve it’ seems to be their attitude. The deaths in Gaza of innocents is horrific-no one is denying it-, Bibi and his right-wing government have done a terrible job in prosecuting this war, and rockets are still being fired into Israel, Hamas does not want a cease-fire nor were they willing/able to provide 45 living hostages and keep moving the line on a deal. When the perpetrators of evil are being celebrated as freedom fighters, when terrorists are being hailed as heroes, we witness “moral indignation” impermanence!

I am drawn to these words because I have fought against my own issues with allowing injustice to be tolerable, moral indignation to be impermanent, being timid in the face of lies and deceit. I have not been able to stand it in the world, in another(s), and, most of all, within myself. I have spent my life railing about it and, in my younger years when I felt powerless and a victim, I turned to alcohol and crime and joined the injustice. My recovery has been about yelling from the rooftops against injustice, prejudice, racism, religious intolerance. I have been at at odds with the people who donated to the organization I was Rabbi and CEO of, I have been at odds with the people we were helping, I have been at odds with colleagues because I am hypersensitive to injustice. There are times when this hypersensitivity has caused me to become volcanic and explosive, which doesn’t always make me popular nor heard. My moral compass is as exacting for myself as it is for another(s), I learned this from my father, z”l. I am sorry to the people who have felt the wrath of my volcanic explosions because of my moral indignation and have been overwhelmed by it-I am not sorry for having a heightened sense of moral outrage. My moral compass has given me the joy, the gift, and the burden of speaking out and I am grateful, even though it has gotten me into trouble at times. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Using Rabbi Heschel's wisdom and teachings to live better today

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 183

Another way of dealing with a bad conscience is to keep the Negro out of sight. The Word proclaims: Love thy Neighbor! So we make it impossible for him to be a neighbor.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg. 90)

Rabbi Heschel continues to give us ‘ways’ of dealing with a bad conscience. What is so remarkable is that he assumes people have bad consciences! As we have seen throughout history up to today, many people are immune to their bad consciences because they spend little, if any, time delving into their inner life. Today’s quote reminds us of “out of sight, out of mind”.

While Rabbi Heschel is addressing the issue of racism against Black people in 1963, not much has changed nor were Black people the only ones who were kept “out of sight” in the history of the United States. Today it is the homeless we are keeping away from the ‘good neighborhoods’, passing laws that allow law enforcement to move them off the streets even if they don’t want to be moved. We still restrict the people who are our neighbors based on economics and housing prices. Throughout our history, we have segregated the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Jews, anyone who is not ‘white like us’. It is a stain on America and a way of ‘solving’ the problem of our “bad conscience.”

In the Bible, “Love thy Neighbor” is in the context of one way to be holy. It is not just the neighbor next door or two doors down, it is everyone who inhabits the neighborhood, everyone who dwells in the city, county, state, country. All of us human beings are neighbors, all of us our related as we say “Our parent, our sovereign” in the Avinu Malkeynu prayer. Yet, we are constantly and consistently ignoring this truth, we are constantly and consistently seeking to “keep those people out” of our neighborhoods, our seats of power, our churches, Temples, Mosques, restaurants, etc. “No Irish need apply”, “No Jews allowed”, “Colored water fountain”, are all stains on our history, ways the WASPS and others dealt with their “bad consciences”. Today, it is the Jew, the Arab, the Muslim, the Hispanic, who are being isolated again, who are being kept out of college campus’, neighborhoods, who are being ghettoized because of not being wanted in ‘our neighborhood’. This is being done by ‘god-fearing’ people-imagine if they were pagans!

We are witnessing the effects of “out of sight, out of mind” as well as the effects of the lies we tell ourselves and. another(s) about “those people”. Be it the MAGA movement, the Christian Nationalists, the White Supremacists, the Progressives who are as intractable as the far-right conservatives, they continue to use a scapegoat to deal with their “bad conscience”. They are manipulated by the liars and the charlatans, the money and the power of outside groups who have an agenda-authoritarianism. The call of the students on campus’ around the country for a Cease-Fire in Gaza, their hailing of Hamas as “freedom fighters”, their portrayal of Israel as oppressors when Hamas could have built Gaza into something terrific and a destination like the French or Italian Riveras, is frightening. The fact that these protests began the day after the Oct. 7th massacre of over 1200 Israelis, the taking of over 240 Hostages, seems a little fishy to many of us. Yet, they wrap themselves in the flag of Hamas and extol authoritarianism, support the extermination of Israel as a country and Jews as a people. This is how they deal with their “bad conscience”, kill the ones we don’t like, do the bidding of their Iranian influencers who would never put up with these types of protests. How many of these passionate protestors want to live under Sharia law? We witness the lies of the far-right as they seem to be supporting Israel when, in truth, they also hate the Jews, remember these are the people who chanted “Jews will not replace us”!

The only real way of “dealing with a bad conscience”, as I ponder Rabbi Heschel’s words, is to invite everyone into our tent. The Passover meal which was eaten on Monday and Tuesday evenings, was to be shared with neighbors if our family could not eat it themselves. There was no ‘leftovers’ allowed. In the Haggadah, we invite the hungry and the needy into our homes to share in the meal and the liberation of the soul that the Exodus from Egypt represents. We have to invite the different parts of our inner life to engage with one another to wrestle out the differences between what we know to be true and right-“love your neighbor as you love yourself”, and what we know is wrong-“keep the_____ out of sight”. We have to deal with our inner conflicts, hear the call of our soul that gives us a “bad conscience”, hear the call of the prophets whose only job was to give a “bad conscience” to the Priests, the royalty, the wealthy as well as the rest of the people. We have to deal with our desire to be deceived and need to deceive another(s). All of this is the inner spiritual work that we are called to by every Holy day in every spiritual tradition as well as by the daily prayers and practices of every spiritual discipline.

I am guilty of dealing with my “bad conscience” at times with ‘out of sight, out of mind’. This year, I am being liberated from this way of being-I retreated after being wounded and feeling abandoned and this is wrong on my part. I made a mistake that profoundly impacted many people and while I disagree with the decisions of the people in power, I am wrong in my retreat from everyone. I am remedying this. I am seeing the choices made by people as them doing what they thought was best with their own “bad consciences” playing a role in their decisions. I, however, cannot blame them nor anyone for my decision to retreat. I am back, I am being more of who I truly am. This is my response to being brought out of Egypt this year. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 182

“There are several ways of dealing with our bad conscience. (1) We can extenuate our responsibility…Modern thought has a tendency to extenuate personal responsibility.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 89)

Rabbi Heschel, in speaking and writing about the scourge of racism in 1963, assumes that most of us have a “bad conscience”. I believe him to be right and I also believe this first of the “ways of dealing with our bad conscience” is a major reason for our continuing to treat anyone of a different skin color, different ethnicity, different religion so terribly wrong in gleeful self-righteousness.

The word “extenuate” comes from the Latin meaning “make thin”. We “make thin” our personal responsibility for the ways we treat people who are different politically, ethnically, etc. Society falls back on it’s ‘norms’ and people, here Rabbi Heschel is speaking of white people, do everything they can to ‘thin’ out their responsibility by blaming the victims, which we do often. We can ‘thin’ out our personal responsibility by claiming it isn’t us doing this, it is the government, it is ‘those other’ people. We ‘thin’ out our personal responsibility by pointing to how ‘those people’ haven’t done anything to help themselves. We can ‘thin’ out personal responsibility through bastardizing the Bible and other holy texts. There are a myriad of ways we ‘thin’ out personal responsibility which allows us to be angry when those who have been mistreated rise up and demand to be treated as equals. “Who do they think they are” is a common refrain heard from the ruling class.

We see how people “make thin” their personal responsibility in our politics. The bowing down to leaders who have shredded the norms, declare they will be dictators, stand against progress, block ‘those’ people from having power is such an example. The ways in which we excuse the crimes and misdemeanors of the candidates and office holders we ‘like’ is another such example. Joining in the MAGA movement and believing Trump is “sent by Jesus” is such an example. The leaders of the Republican Party who endorse him after calling him out for his role in the Jan. 6th attack on democracy and the Capital are examples of people who “make thin” their personal responsibility for the future, for the health, of democracy and the U.S. Constitution. We are in a precarious situation in our country and in the world. Our democratic values have been “make thin” because we allow people of bad faith, bad actors to have the power to organize and spread malicious gossip, lies and appeal to the basest parts of a human being-our fears of being less than someone else.

Our religious institutions have, in many cases, served to “extenuate personal responsibility” as well. Rabbi Heschel is speaking about the plight of Black people, where many clergy found a myriad of ‘reasons’ to “make thin” their personal responsibility as Dr. King outlined in his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” some 61 years ago. Religious leaders continue to give aid and comfort to our “tendency to extenuate personal responsibility”. We are witnesses to the ‘glory’ heaped on Trump and other people who demean those who are not ‘white like me’, who believe women should be treated as second-class citizens, who treat anyone who is not a ‘good white christian’ as third+-class citizens. Some clergy continue to call for restraint when those of us who are not ‘good white christians’ demand a seat at the table. These clergy have “made thin” their personal responsibility in the prejudice, racism, anti-semitism, Islamaphobia that is rampant in our country and around the globe today.

The phenomena of anti-semitism is on the rise today in America. Almost 24% of Americans endorse anti-semitic tropes. 42% of Americans have a family member or friends who dislike Jews! The abandonment of Jews by people of color, by young people is rising at alarming rates and all of these people “extenuate personal responsibility” by blaming Israel and Jews for their hatred. They have extolled known terrorists, Hamas, as freedom fighters, they are being controlled by Iranian and other Arab countries who fund these groups and spread their lies. We can debate the Israeli government’s attitude and treatment of Palestinians and there is truth on both sides of these arguments and to declare “Jews will not replace us” and “from the river to the sea” as well as forgetting about the hostages still in Hamas’ control without ever being visited by the Red Cross is a not-so-subtle way to “extenuate personal responsibility”.

This teaching of Rabbi Heschel cuts to the core of my denial of personal responsibility, my defending my actions of withdrawal from people. I am guilty of not reaching out when I could have, waiting for another(s) to reach out to me especially since my exile from my former community. What has become crystal clear to me is that the community I belonged to, helped to build is not a ‘former’ community-it is alive and the people in it are living vibrant lives. I took the exile by some to mean the exile by all and, by doing this, I “made thin” my responsibility to partake with the people I love, people I have been connected to for years. This is how subtle Rabbi Heschel’s teaching is. I love it because, as is the case for me, Rabbi Heschel makes me look inside of myself, to take my part in any and every situation I find myself in. I do not have the platform I used to have, I have not been embraced by the new community I am living in as much or as outwardly as I would want AND I still cannot “extenuate” my “personal responsibility”, I still have to speak out, reach out, and use the platforms available to me to help another human being, to relieve the suffering of another. I commit to do this more, I commit to reach out and not be dismayed or deterred by indifference any more. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 181

“There is a form of oppression which is more painful and more scathing than physical injury or economic privation. It is public humiliation. (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 88)

Looking at our world and pondering these words of Rabbi Heschel in today’s context of Jews celebrating the exodus from Egypt, Jews being tormented on College Campus’, Jews being accused of ‘genocide’, Jews being regulated to being oppressors by their former allies in moving the world to a more just and kind place is mind-boggling.

In the Haggadah, which we read from last night, we are “obligated to see oneself as if one had been taken out from Egypt”. It is an obligation to be empathetic, as my teacher and friend, Hazzan Danny Maseng said last evening. Also in the Haggadah, we are told to welcome the stranger, bring everyone who is hungry and everyone who is in need to hear the story of the exodus from Egypt in order to give them hope, to let them know that slavery will not last and we are their ally in seeking liberation and freedom.

We Jews are not perfect! Israel is not a perfect State-full stop! Yet, the “public humiliation” that both Israel and Jews are receiving right now is totally out of proportion for what is happening on the ground. Iran and other Arab countries have funded and staffed these ‘students’ and Black preachers and people are identifying with Hamas and Iran! Just as the Republicans are identifying with Putin, these Hamas lovers would not enjoy being under Shariah law, they would not love being told who to marry, what gender they have to be, how they have to follow the words of Ayatollah, wear head coverings, women being second-class citizens, etc.

Yet, they persist in “public humiliation” towards Jews! As in in the past, these ‘freedom supporters’ have conflated Jews with oppressors, Jews as ‘the enemy’, Jews as the cause of all evil in the world, etc and are engaged in a concerted campaign of “public humiliation”. The same people Jews have supported, marched with, fought alongside of for human rights, civil rights, in the courts, in the streets, are now seeing Jews as the enemy! They have adopted the lies of the Iranians, the tactics of Hamas, and call themselves allies in fighting for freedom. They can do this from their cushy homes in Qatar, Tehran, Morningside Heights, while Jews respond to every calamity that happens around the globe, while Jews donate money, time, and actions to help those who are oppressed more often than most. It is in our Haggadah, it is in the Bible, it is an obligation even the most secular Jews accept.

This form of oppression is “more painful and more scathing” precisely because it is so personal. Just as Orban in Hungary, Putin in Russia, Trump in America, they and their followers turn on the people who have helped them so they can scapegoat them for their own benefit. The experience of Black Ministers supporting the anti-semitism of Iranian backed groups, the experience of Black Ministers supporting Hamas’ terrorism and not calling for the release of the Hostages nor even mentioning them is like a knife in the back. The experience of “Jews will not replace us”, the calling of President Biden’s support for the State of Israel as being a partner in Genocide is ridiculous, deceptive as well as wrong and anti-semitic. This idea of being “ant-zionist” and not “anti-semitic” is a false argument, a way of validating their “public humiliation” of Jews and a Jewish State. When former allies support people and join in their chants of “from the river to the sea…” they are not calling out Israel for their errors, of which there are many, they are calling for the extermination of the Jewish people and the end of Israel as a nation! This is also “public humiliation”, echoing the call of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in 1948, echoing the call of Nazi Germany, by people who have suffered oppression because of the color of their skin, people who have experienced slavery in their past!

Jews and Israel have engaged in “public humiliation” also-none of us are perfect! No one has clean hands here, no one is pure here. I am as upset with the Rabbis who preach hatred towards Arabs as I am with the Arabs, the Blacks, the Hispanics, the Whites, etc who preach hatred towards Jews. It is with extreme sadness  realizing how far we have fallen since the Exodus from Egypt. Instead of seeing ourselves as free people with all the responsibilities and obligations freedom calls for, we have used freedom as a privilege and a means of separation rather than a coming together of people, we have used our position of power to engage in “public humiliation” of those we see as ‘enemies’. We have betrayed our friends and allies, we have abused the trust we have been given by people and we all suffer spiritually from this way of being.

I have engaged in “public humiliation” at times in my life, I have also been the recipient of same! I love this teaching because it is easy to ignore, it is so easy for me to want to ‘get even’ and, as the Haggadah and the Bible teach me, I have to love my neighbor as myself, I have to see the Image of God even in the people who hate me, I have to protect myself and not perpetrate the same tactics as my enemy for fear of being like her/him. It is hard at times, I am not perfect, I strive each day to have a little more empathy and divine pathos for people. I have come to accept the sadness of seeing another be stuck in their own particular Egypt and when I am stuck, I ask for help to be liberated and redeemed. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 180

“It is time for the white man to strive for self-emancipation, to set himself free of bigotry, to stop being a slave to wholesale contempt, a passive recipient of slander” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 87-88)

Tonight, Jews across the world will celebrate the Exodus from Egypt by retelling the story of liberation from Pharaoh, the liberation from their own inner slaveries, the crossing of the Red Sea. Yet, as Rabbi Heschel says earlier in his talk on Race and Religion, “Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate”.

In our self-deception, too many of us believe we are already free, we are already whole and we need to hold onto the past tightly. In doing this, we continue to give power to the Pharaoh, both within us and outside of us. Rather than heeding Rabbi Heschel’s words above, the “white man” has ensconced himself in “bigotry”, he relishes his “being a slave to wholesale contempt”, and imbues “slander” with an insatiable appetite. And, in order to be ‘like the man’, many other races have joined in their own “bigotry”, “wholesale contempt” and “slander”! It is sad, it is devastating, it is blasphemy.

Just as Easter and Ramadan are holy days of liberation of the spirit in the here and now, so too is Passover holy days of spiritual liberation, liberation from the slavery of ‘stinking thinking’, liberation from the slavery of a sick soul, liberation from the slavery of bad actions. We are to invite in the poor and the hungry so they can eat, we are to invite in the needy so they can join in the liberation, we are to “obligated to see ourselves as if we too had been brought out of Egypt”. Yet, we keep believing we have already been redeemed, not realizing redemption is a daily exercise, the Pharaoh within us is “not ready to capitulate”.

While many people defend their “bigotry”, give ‘rational’ reasons for their “wholesale contempt”, and relish in being “a passive recipient of slander”, the truth is there is not defense, no ‘rational’ reasons, nothing to relish in our behaviors. These ways of being are the antithesis of what it means to celebrate Passover, Easter, Ramadan, etc. We have become so enslaved to the past, we have become so enamored with our lies, we are unable to see the “forest for the trees”. We are so involved in minutia, many of us are blind to the call to help the poor, welcome the hungry, leave Egypt with the help of people who are ‘not like us’ and have so much to teach us, so much love to give to us, so in need of the love we can/should be giving to them.

The inability to “set himself free of bigotry…” unfolds before us daily. Whether it is Bibi or Trump, Putin or Orban, Hamas or Iran, as well as all of their proxies and adherents, we are bombarded with the “slander” they spew, we are ensconced in the “wholesale contempt” for them and their followers, and our “bigotry” towards them seems holy and right. The pro-Hamas protestors who use the Palestinian people’s plight as their shield for hatred of Jews and their goal of destroying Israel, are seen as righteous in their “slander”, “wholesale contempt” and “bigotry” towards the Jewish people and anyone who supports Israel’s right to exist. The right-wing religious zealots in Israel and around the globe who believe killing a Palestinian is a good thing, ordained by god, are unembarrassed by their “bigotry”, “wholesale contempt” and “slander”. The Republicans who parrot Putin’s lies and disinformation with such vitriol and fervor, Fox News, et al, who make shit up just to deify Trump and enslave anyone not like them, ie white, rich, privileged, all are slaves to their “bigotry”, “wholesale contempt” and “slander”. While this alone is horrific, the real tragedy is how many people they infect, how many people have become mesmerized by their “bigotry” etc. They have, through their “wholesale contempt” for the people they reach, engaged in “slander” and deceit to line their pockets and seek to destroy democracy, bastardize Biblical teachings, and set themselves up as Pharaoh.

Tonight we will gather to read the Haggadah, the story of liberation. We will sing the songs, say the prayers and, most importantly, tell the stories of our own liberation from slavery-both in prior years and the slavery we are leaving tonight, this year. It is imperative for all of us, even those who are “wise, knowledgable” to tell the story of liberation so we can defeat our own inner Pharaoh. We know the parts of us that want to give into “bigotry”, “wholesale contempt”, and “slander” and we also know the Moses within us that wants to and is capable of redeeming us from these slaveries. We are also aware that we have to “lift up our eyes and see” the miracle of the full moon, the miracle of the sun rising, the miracle of liberation, and all the other miracles we experience daily and no longer be oblivious to them. We are also aware of Dayenu, enough-we have enough to give to another in need, we have enough spiritual wellness to let go of our “bigotry” because we are aware of our need for one another, we have enough love to share, enough time to spare to help another, enough clarity to see everyone as our brothers and sisters, part of our human race. This, I believe, is the goal of Passover, this is the goal of Rabbi Heschel’s words above.

I know the difficulty of getting our inner and outer Pharaoh to capitulate. I have been engaged in this work for the past 35+ years and Pharaoh still subtly creeps into my mind daily-hence my need for a spiritual program. I have rooted him/her out mostly and an abundance of time-yet I need to apologize to those who have been impacted when I haven’t been able to. To those who think I have been their Pharaoh, I am sorry. To the people who still feel “wholesale contempt” for me, I am sorry and forgive you. I am leaving the Egypts above a lot more this year and I am grateful to all of you who have helped me see the nuances of life better. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 179

“It is time for the white man to strive for self-emancipation, to set himself free of bigotry, to stop being a slave to wholesale contempt, a passive recipient of slander” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 87-88)

We begin the celebration of liberation from Egypt tomorrow evening. The promises God makes to us in Exodus Chapter 6 have yet to be fulfilled. Each year, we remember we were slaves in Egypt and the slavery was not just being under the thumb of the Egyptians, it was also our inner slaveries which demeaned our humanity. The emancipation from Egypt, much like the Emancipation Proclamation in America dealt only with the burdens put upon us from ‘outsiders’, not the inner slaveries of our minds and emotions. This was a promise that God made to us by saying: “I will rid you of their slaveries, I will redeem you…” We, unfortunately, have not accepted this promise, we have not allowed ourselves to be rid of these inner slaveries, we have rejected being redeemed!

Rabbi Heschel’s words from 1963 are as poignant today as they were then. Immersing myself in them, especially on the eve of Passover, causes me to ask myself: how can I “strive for self-emancipation” a little more this year, how can I set myself a little freer this year? The answer lies, I believe, in the words above. In the Haggadah, the book used for the Passover celebration, we are told “in every generation, we are to see ourselves as if we too had been brought out of Egypt.” Engaging in this direction, gratitude for being brought out of Egypt is usually the first experience. I would challenge this, however, if we are to “strive for self-emancipation, we first have to name the slaveries we are still caught up in. We have to look inside of ourselves and name the narrow places we still dwell in, both in our hearts and our minds. We have to commit to “get a new pair of glasses” so our vision is fresh and we see with 20/20 ‘eyesight’ how our inner life is still caught up in Egypt, how we have refused, been unable to allow ourselves to be redeemed by a power greater than ourselves, by our communities, by our connection to the spirit of the universe.

Emancipation is liberation, not freedom. Strive is not achieving, it is the process of “making great efforts to achieve” and “fighting vigorously” to achieve. Our problem today, as it was in 1963, as it has been throughout the millennia, is we are not “fighting vigorously” nor “making great efforts” to liberate ourselves from the narrow places of seeking power, prestige, wealth, of our inner slaveries and our self-deceptions, of our buying into the deceptions of another(s) and the false belief we are free to do as we choose. Liberation is a “release” from the prisons we are in, it is a “setting free” of the bonds and chains that tie us to old ideas, to seeing the world through the lens of fear and despair. We are not free when we leave Egypt, according to many commentaries on the Bible. All of us did not leave Egypt when we had the opportunity, according to one of the many ways of reading the Bible, the call of Moses to Pharaoh: “Let My people go” was not totally fulfilled at the time nor has it been fulfilled up to today. The “white man” seems to incapable of striving for “self-emancipation” and, unfortunately, most other people seem to be falling short in this exercise as well.

As part of the daily prayer service each day, we recite a passage reminding ourselves that the fringes we wear or don’t wear are to remind us of being liberated from Egypt as a people, being emancipated from the harsh labors of building pyramids, of being under fed, of being seem as ‘the other’, of being ridiculed and debased for our skin color, our religious beliefs, our ethnicity, etc. Yet, so many Jews just read these words and don’t reflect on the “self-emancipation” they and we need! At the Passover Seder, we go through the Haggadah and give great commentaries and new ideas on different passages, we just don’t seem to be able to spend time talking about the “self-emancipation” we need this year, the narrow places that are so constricting we feel the urgency, finally, to leave them. Speaking of them gives voice to our struggles, it gives people the opportunity to seek help in their “fighting vigorously” to get out of these boxes we find ourselves in. Watching Alex Edelman’s “Just for Us” comedy special on Max is a treat and a lesson. As the Haggadah says, “in every generation they rise up to destroy us”, and while this is about the Jewish people, it also can be taken as a call to our inner life. Each year, in every generation, there are people on both the far right and the far left, who call for the destruction of the Jews, blaming us for the ills of society. Yet, each year, as I Immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words above, we have to be aware of the inner slaveries, the inner prejudices that seek to destroy our spirits, our connections, our passion and purpose.

I have struggled for “self-emancipation” all my life. For 20+ years, I was unable to realize how deeply ensconced I was in my own inner slaveries of ego, less than, fighting ghosts, digging myself deeper and deeper into a spiritual hole that my had my actions go against everything I believed in. Then I was liberated when I was arrested in 1986! How strange this sounds and how true it is. Each year at Passover, I commit to leave a slavery-usually the same one or one similar to the first one-fear of being rejected, being seen as irrelevant. I have named this slavery as anger, impatience, etc; yet Rabbi Heschel’s words above have given me a new light to see inside myself. I commit to leave this narrow place because it is something I have no control over, I have been and will be rejected and I am still standing. I have been seen as and called irrelevant by people I trusted and served and I am still writing and contributing. I have allowed myself to be dependent on another’s opinion for too long. This is the liberation I seek this year. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 178

“Prayer and prejudice cannot dwell in the same heart. Worship without compassion is worse than self-deception; it is an abomination.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 87)

These two sentences have not found a home in most people’s hearts and minds, it seems. Too often people go to their Temples, Mosques, Churches to pray for their victory over people of a different faith, people of a different ethnicity, color, etc . Too often we hear the call of prejudice from the pulpits, from the mouths of clergy in the most subtle of ways. Too often we use prayer to ‘get ours’ rather than investigate and root out our prejudices and self-deceptions.

Witnessing the ways in which ‘good christian folk’ are expressing their disdain and trying to tear down the justice system in this country, especially with the juror intimidation and lies regarding the trial of Donald Trump should be causing great alarm in all of us. Praying for his acquittal while hating ‘the libs’ is exactly what Rabbi Heschel is speaking to. When this occurs, it is not even a prayer in the Jewish tradition, it is called a worthless prayer. Yet, we are watching the bastardization of prayer in our midst and have been for so long. The KKK, white supremacists, Nation of Islam, Radical Islam, Far right Jews, the Greeks, Romans, etc have used prayer to defeat their enemies, to validate their prejudices, believing if their side wins, then God is on their side! Bob Dylan wrote a song called “With God on Our Side” and in it he depicts the lies people tell that God is only on the side of the winners, while the Bible says God is God of all people and cares for the widow, the stranger, the orphan and the poor. The Bible teaches us to give voice to voiceless, power to the powerless, the prophets rail against this type of thinking.

In Isaiah we learn: “Why bring many sacrifices to me? Why are you trampling My courts? Bring no more vain offerings…I cannot stand iniquity along with solemnity”(Isaiah 1: 11-14). Yet, we continue to not heed these words of the prophet, this call of God. We seem to be immersed in such self-deception that we believe “God is on Our Side” so we can do whatever we want and claim we are doing it in God’s name. Perverting justice, hating Jews, Muslims, people of color, LGBTQ+, Asians, etc because they are different than the ‘good white people’ is an abomination.

We are seeing an old phenomena play out as well. The minorities are going against one another because of prejudice, because of ideology of the far left. We can see the far right and the far left come together to hate Jews, to hate people who believe in the Justice system, people who pray with open hearts and our worship bring us to having more compassion. Herein lies the problem; when one is at an extreme, they have more in common with people at the other extreme than they do with everyone else. Hence the Settlers and Hamas can tout the same solutions; kill them all! The authoritarian and the far left progressive both believe the masses are too stupid, uninformed, unaware to have power, they need to control the narrative and the country. Our founding fathers saw this danger and separated church and state while the ‘strict constitutionalists’ of today are trying to make this a ‘Christian Nation’.

To combine prayer and prejudice, to judge in advance and without actual knowledge, goes against everything the Bible stands for and says. It was not the Egyptian people that were ‘hated’, it was the actions of the Pharaoh and those that went along with it. We are told not to hate the Egyptians because they took us in when we needed help! We are told to not hate people in our heats, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, to help our enemies ass if he has fallen, etc. There is no room for being judgmental in the Bible, there is no call to hatred in the Bible, not even towards Amalek! Yet we see over and over again people of all faiths, people of all ideologies have prejudices in their hearts and hatred/discrimination in their actions.

Religion, education has been hijacked by prejudicial people for a long time. The history books are written by the winners, except for the Bible. The Bible was ‘written’ by the losers, the Jews! In it, we are given ways of being that promote living together with people of different beliefs, different ideas. We are given paths to build bridges on so we can speak with one another and find solutions for making our world a little better each day and honoring the dignity, the contribution of everyone to this goal. Anything less is an abomination, anything contrary is a “trampling of My courts”, a “vain offering” and “an iniquity”. Isn’t it time for all of us to use prayer and worship to look inside and heal our resentments and prejudices so we can pray and worship with a whole heart?

I am moved by these words of Rabbi Heschel. I continue to look inside myself, especially as we get closer to Passover because prejudice, hatred are the two most insidious of narrow places, the Egypts that sneak up on me and most of us. I continue to experience reactions to what is happening in the world and in my life, and, through prayer, study and meditation, I continually let go of the knee-jerk reactions I have so I can respond with kindness, love, and passion. Having asked God to get me out of jams for 20+years from my teens till my recovery, I am acutely aware of how prayer can be an abomination and I work diligently each day to not make this error again. On Passover we are given an extra boost to leave this narrow and hateful place, we are once again called upon to leave Egypt. I have been privileged to be part of the 20% that left Egypt since 1987 and I will continue my journey to freedom this year. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 177

“In referring to the Negro in this paper we must, of course, always keep equally in mind the plight of all individuals belonging to a racial, religious, ethnic, or cultural minority.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg.87)

Racism, being a “cancer of the soul”, affects those who are infected, those who are diseased in every aspect of their dealing with and treatment of people who are ‘not like me’. While the conference dealt with racism against Black people, Rabbi Heschel reminds us that it is not only “the Negro” who is being being held down, it is all people who belong to a “minority”. We seem to have forgotten this truth, we seem to have become so interested in “identity politics” that even the different minorities have become ‘racist’ against another “minority”!

This “cancer of the soul” is so insidious and subtle that, like many cancers, it goes undetected for years, people are in denial of it. Just as people who are abused often abuse another, people who have been subjected to racism by another many times feel it is ‘their time’ to have power and to ‘get even’ with those who harmed them. This just continues the cycle of racism, hatred, poison, “cancer of the soul” that fuels hatred, misogyny, racism, religious bigotry that has existed for the millennia.

Just as in Egypt, just like Pharaoh, the authors of any time of racism, religious bigotry, ethnic hatred, etc seek to infuse the everyday people with lies, with fear over ‘those people”. They want to “deal slyly” with the ‘troublemakers’ who demand freedom, equality, equity, inclusion. “Who are you to want a seat at the table”, they ask within themselves and, their fear of losing power causes them to make up stories that paint ‘those people’ as enemies of the state, enemies of ‘freedom’, haters of ‘democracy’. Pharaoh and all of his disciples throughout the centuries all “accuse someone else of that which they are guilty of” and we, the people, lap it up.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” is a quote from Rev. Martin Luther King and I am using it here to validate the quote above. We, the people have to come out from under our rocks, we, the people have to take the blinders of  racism, bigotry, prejudice that we have used to not see what is, not see how we have contributed to the hatred and fear that grips us today, as it has in the past.

Be it Richard Spencer or the person next door who has taken the waving of the American Flag to mean ‘return to white rule’, ‘keep them foreigners out’, or other such bullshit, both are dangerous to democracy, both are disciples of Pharaoh and the Egyptians who did Pharaoh’s bidding. They are the ‘want to be’ taskmasters, they are the people who have drank the Kool-Aid of hating people ‘different than us’. They have bought into the lies that if someone is of a different color, different ethnicity, different religious tradition, they are a threat. Like fish on who take the bait, many people across the globe have bought into these lies hook, line, and sinker.

Rabbi Heschel’s quote above is also a call to those of us who have suffered from any type of prejudice-“what is hateful to you, do not do to another”. Hillel the Elder says this, according to the Talmud, and it has been called the “Jewish Golden Rule”. Yet, we see today how the far left progressives have joined the far right white supremacists in anti-semitic rhetoric and actions. We are witnessing today how blacks and hispanics mistreat one another, we experience how the terrorists of Hamas are celebrated by the progressives and even by Black Clergy who call for a Cease-fire without the hostages being returned, with no guarantees that Hamas will not rule in Gaza, with no agreement that Oct. 7th will not happen again! “Oh the poor terrorists need to be coddled” is what they are saying. The same people who sought and got the help of the Jews during the Civil Rights movement, the same people who have had Jewish support for every movement against prejudice, have abandoned these principles - how sad. Israel is not perfect, just as the Jews who left Egypt were not perfect. The Bible is a story of imperfection, all of the heroes have flaws, the killing of the 1st born is horrific, yet, it is a story of evolution from fratricide to communal living. It is a story of freedom throughout the land, it is a story of welcoming the stranger and caring for one another, ransoming the captive, etc.

As Passover approaches, it is crucial to see how instead of ransoming the captive, we are the captive, we are holding ourselves and ‘those people’ captive to old ideas of hatred, racism, religious bigotry, etc. When “ethnic cleansing” is a term that is still being used, we are deep into the very problem the Conference on Race and Religion was held to solve. We, the people, have to turn into our souls, take stock of our inner prejudices and hatreds, wounds and hurts which feed/create these prejudices and hates, and realize how narrow our lives are because of them, how enslaved we are by them and become sick over our actions because of them. Then, we are ready to be liberated this Passover, then we can begin to end the racism, prejudice, Islamaphobia, anti-semitism, anti-gay, anti-women that is plaguing our lives and our world.

Each year, I leave my narrow places a little more and this year, I know I am freer than I have ever been. I am unafraid of my errors, I do not allow them to define me, I have no resentments nor hatreds towards people who have harmed me, I reach out for reconciliation and accept when people respond negatively and/or positively. Lets all leave Egypt this year! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 176

“What begins as inequality of some inevitably ends as inequality of all.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 87)

Continuing the paragraph from yesterday, I am struck with the simple wisdom of the sentence above and our inability to grasp it, understand it, and acknowledge it. In our self-deceptive, ‘reptile’ minds we see unable to learn from history, learn from the Bible, learn from the experience of our ancestors and see what has happened and is happening in our time.

While the Biblical command is to “have dominion and rule” it was speaking of our ability to control animals, grow plants, etc - not have dominion and rule over another human being, another ethnicity, another color, creed, etc. Yet, we have coveted power and prestige by constantly and consistently seeking a person, a group of people to rule! It is a travesty of humanity to continue to bastardize the human spirit, defy the divinity all of us are created in, by using laws and customs to make separate rules for ‘the chosen’ and ‘those’ people.

The Bible tells us that “there shall be one law for the citizen and the stranger alike”, yet we seem unable to fulfill this command. Throughout history countries, governments, individuals have sought to scapegoat an individual and a group for their selfish needs. The prophets railed against this way of being and were ignored. All great civilizations, at one time or another, had laws for the ruling class, laws for the ‘peasant class’ and laws for the Jews. All have used the Jews as the focal point of inequality so they didn’t ‘taint the blood’ with ‘those vermin’ of the Aryans, of the Greeks, etc. All of the world has, at one time or another, had laws barring Jews from owning land, going to university, being counted, etc.

In all of these countries, the ‘peasant’ class who reviled the Jews and cheered at their being embarrassed and harassed, had the same inequality visited upon them and they were surprised each time. The ‘ruling class’ members became subject to losing their status at any time the people at the top decided to grab more power, more business’, or these people fell out of favor with the ‘boss’. Today’s autocrats learned their ruling structure from history-keep the masses down by giving them a common enemy, while setting it up for them to suffer as well, picking their pockets, wrapping them in chains and punishing anyone who doesn’t go along with ‘the program’.

America, the “land of the free and the home of the brave”, has a terrible track record of ignoring the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above. Be it the Chinese immigrants who built our railroads and were discriminated against, the German Jews who came here, the Italian, the Irish, the Eastern European Jews, the Iranian refugees, people from Mexico and Central America, etc; all were treated with disdain, mistrust, and inequality in their beginnings here in America, and then did the same to the next group of immigrants! Of course, seeing Blacks being treated different than whites in “the land of the free” was de rigueur, so commonplace people didn’t even take note.

We are witnesses and victims to the effects of the “inequality to some” that is beginning to be “inequality to all”. The Tax system in the US favors the rich, there is no such thing as everyone paying their “fair share”, when the people who make money from hedge funds, etc get the tax breaks, the corporations are treated as people and are too fragile to pay their fair share while they gouge the poor. Small business are being gobbled up and going out of business because of the Amazons, Home Depots, and other large chains that seek to monopolize the marketplace with a little help from their friends in government, etc. Our legal system has been at least two-tiered for a long time. Black and Brown, poor and immigrant people have been served one type of justice while white, rich people get another type of justice. Donald Trump is a perfect example. Whether one is a democrat or republican, for or against Trump-seeing him delay, disrespect, and denigrate our legal system is hurting us greatly. His belief that he is above the law, that he can do anything he wants to, goes back to a time way before he was President. He has always believed “some animals are more equal than others”.(Animal Farm)

Israel is treated with “inequality” as well. The same countries calling for restraint didn’t show it when the Santa Ana went to war with Texas, when Germany bombed London, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, etc.  Yet, the Jews should show restraint because, “well, they aren’t like us” so even in Global politics, Israel is called out for the humanitarian crisis caused by Hamas while Iran is the chair of the human rights commission-while they kill women for not wearing the ‘proper’ dress code! Do the countries that make up the UN really believe they will not suffer the same fate, the same condemnations as Israel when Russia gets desperate?

I have been a victim of anti-semitism, of discrimination because of my criminal past, because of my alcoholic past. I have watched how the “inequality” that was shown to Black people in my youth was hoisted upon me when I marched for Civil Rights, when I marched against the Vietnam War. I am a student of history and I know ‘in my bones’ that we have to end our need to have a scapegoat, we have to see one another as equals in the eyes of the universe and our differences make our world more complete and robust. Isn’t it time we all “just got along” and “rejoice in our portion” rather than be envious and power hungry? God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark